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The Renminbi's Dollar Peg at the Crossroads

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The Renminbi's Dollar Peg at the Crossroads The Renminbi’s Dollar Peg at the Crossroads Maurice Obstfeld* University of California, Berkeley First draft: July 14, 2005 Revised: May 11, 2007 Abstract In the face of huge balance of payments surpluses and internal inflationary pressures, China has been in a classic conflict between internal and external balance under its dollar currency peg. Over the longer term, China’s large, modernizing, and diverse economy will need exchange rate flexibility and, eventually, convertibility with open capital markets. A feasible and attractive exit strategy from the essentially fixed RMB exchange rate would be a two-stage approach, consistent with the steps already taken since July 2005, but going beyond them. First, establish a limited trading band for the RMB relative to a basket of major trading partner currencies. Set the band so that it allows some initial revaluation of the RMB against the dollar, manage the basket rate within the band if necessary, and widen the band over time as domestic foreign exchange markets develop. The ultimate goal is a floating exchange rate coupled with some relative of inflation targeting. Second, put on hold ad hoc measures of financial account liberalization. They will be less helpful for relieving exchange rate pressures once the yuan/basket rate is allowed to move flexibly within a band, and they are best postponed until domestic foreign exchange markets develop further, the exchange rate is fully flexible, and the domestic financial system has been strengthened and placed fully on a market-oriented basis. JEL number: F32 Keywords: Renminbi, China currency, China balance of payments, fixed exchange rate exit strategy * I thank Tyler Sorba and José Antonio Rodríguez-Lopez for research assistance, Ji Min and Shang-Jin Wei for help in obtaining data. Comments from Edwin Lim and Yu Yongding helped improve the paper. This paper was prepared under the auspices of the China Economic Research and Advisory Programme, sponsored by the East Asian Institute of the National University of Singapore. An earlier version of this pper was published in Chinese in He Fan and Zhang Bin, eds., In Search of an Internally and Externally Balanced Development Strategy: China and the Global Economy in the Coming Decade (Shanghai: Shanghai Finance and Economic University Press, 2006). From 1997 until July 21, 2005, the Chinese authorities pegged the renminbi (RMB) price of the United States dollar within a narrow range. On July 21, 2005, China’s authorities moved to an adjustable basket peg against the dollar, at the same time carrying out a 2.1 percent step revaluation of the central yuan/dollar rate relative to the prior central rate of 8.28 yuan per dollar. Figure 1 shows the course of the yuan/dollar nominal exchange rate over a longer historical perspective. Following a period of substantial cumulative inflation, the official rate of the RMB was devalued sharply in 1994, albeit in tandem with unification of the official and parallel exchange markets.1 A slight appreciation followed. Very notably in view of the claims that China’s exchange rate policy is dictated by the imperative of maintaining an undervalued currency, the authorities resisted substantial devaluation pressures, at the cost of some deflation, during the Asian crisis period starting in 1997. For some time now the situation has been reversed, with strong revaluation pressures, speculative capital inflows, and gathering inflationary momentum in the economy. The ability to resist speculative pressures comes from the maintenance of restrictions on private capital flows, especially inflows, as well as from administrative controls useful in restraining inflation.2 Nonetheless, “hot money” inflows and a burgeoning current account surplus have helped swell China’s foreign reserves immensely in recent years. Prior to July 21, 2005, most observers, and indeed the Chinese government itself, acknowledged that China’s exchange-rate arrangements were unsustainable and undesirable as a long-term foundation for responding, without disruptive episodes of inflation or deflation, to inevitable real-side shocks, as well as to secular changes in the 1 At the time of unification, the parallel rate already stood at a depreciated level relative to the official rate. 1 economy such as real appreciation due to Balassa-Samuelson effects. The July 2001 revaluation-cum-“flexation” is a response to the situation, including the external trade pressures it had generated, but leaves questions about how flexibility will be exploited in the future. So far, even the ±0.3 percent margins of yuan/dollar flexibility that exist have not been utilized fully.The rate of trend revaluation, although it has accelerated noticeably over time (see Figure 1), has been fairly small. Furthermore, capital markets that are open to the world seem a prerequisite for a modern high-income economy such as China seeks eventually to become. The issues concern the transition. How might China best move toward a genuinely more flexible exchange-rate regime? How might it best dismantle capital controls? And how might it optimally sequence these two conceptually distinct liberalization initiatives? These issues are closely interrelated, of course, and are central compenents of a more comprehensive program for rebalancing the Chinese economy, where consumption, especially of certain services, is too low, and investment, though high, is inefficient. More broadly, China’s financial development and rebalancing is critical for a smooth rebalancing of the global economy.3 In the following pages I have four goals. First, to provide a brief overview of developments in China’s real exchange rate, external accounts, and inflation, thereby filling in some concomitants of the nominal exchange rate trajectory in Figure 1. Second, to draw parallels with the experience of Germany (still an exporting powerhouse) during the Bretton Woods era. Third, to discuss the rather successful experiences of Chile and Israel in transiting from pegged exchange rates with capital controls to floating rates with financial opening. Fourth to draw some parallels with the experiences of Japan and 2 Prasad and Wei (2005) offer an excellent discussion. 3 On China, see Blanchard and Giavazzi (2005). On the global dimension, see Roubini (2007). 2 South Korea. Fifth and finally, to sketch a blueprint for gradually flexing the renminbi’s exchange rate in advance of capital-account liberalization. Figure 1: Yuan/dollar nominal exchange rate 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 1/4/1988 1/4/1989 1/4/1990 1/4/1991 1/4/1992 1/4/1993 1/4/1994 1/4/1995 1/4/1996 1/4/1997 1/4/1998 1/4/1999 1/4/2000 1/4/2001 1/4/2002 1/4/2003 1/4/2004 1/4/2005 1/4/2006 1/4/2007 Source: Global Financial Data Recent Trends Up until the large devaluation-cum-unification of 1994, China’s nominal exchange rate against the U.S. dollar moved upward over time to accommodate relatively rapid domestic inflation. Since 1994 the RMB has not depreciated over any significant time interval, and it was absolutely fixed in recent years until July 2005. The dollar has 3 fluctuated against other industrial-country currencies, however, and in China itself, inflation has been variable and, at times, high. The result has been substantial variability in the effective (or multilateral) real exchange rate of the RMB. Figure 2: CPI inflation rate 30.00 25.00 20.00 15.00 10.00 5.00 0.00 -5.00 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 Source: IMF, WEO database (April 2007). Figure for 2007 is an IMF staff forecast. Figure 2 shows the behavior of the CPI inflation rate for China since the late 1980s. Earlier spikes in inflation were associated with social unrest. Inflation was brought down after the mid-1990s, however, and, as noted earlier, even became negative during the late 1990s. Data for 2004 showed, however, a fairly sharp increase in inflation, to 3.9 per cent per annum. Annual inflation dropped to 1.8 percent for 2005 and 1.5 percent for 2006, but is forecast by the IMF to be 2.2 percent for 2007, surprisingly low given the underlying monetary landscape, but moving up relative to the PBOC’s presumed comfort 4 range. According to Monetary Policy Analysis Group of the People’s Bank of China (2007, figure 3), the year-on-year rates of increase in the CPI, consumer goods prices, and agricultural prices were all rather high in the final months of 2006. The dispersion of inflation across China’s regions is also sizable, compared to the situation in richer countries. The PBOC has raised interest rates several times in recent years. If the RMB is indeed undervalued relative to its long-run equilibrium position, as many economists and policymakers in China’s export markets claim, then the eventual approach to long-run equilibrium necessarily must involve some combination of domestic inflation (relative to foreign inflation rates) and nominal currency appreciation (relative to foreign currencies). If we assume a continuation of the cautious pace of nominal appreciation thus far, this perspective would suggest that an acceleration of domestic inflation is inevitable. Figure 3 shows China’s real effective CPI exchange rate index, as calculated by the IMF (with an increase being a real appreciation of the RMB). As inflation was brought down after the late 1980s, the currency depreciated in real terms, then appreciated in real terms, notwithstanding the 1994 nominal depreciation against the dollar, in the face of renewed domestic inflation. In the late 1990s the real external value of the RMB stabilized as the price level did. Most recently, the RMB has depreciated in real terms to somewhat below its Asian-crisis levels, in tandem with the dollar’s overall depreciation, with a very slight rebound evident after 2005.
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